TWD: Baking with Julia - more croissants!

This isn't actually a Tuesday's with Dorie week, but since we did croissants last week and I only used half of the dough for the regular croissants, I figured I would post the Almond and the Chocolate croissants this week!  First of all, lets start off with YUM.  Oh, and by jumping up and down in excitement that I actually made croissants, including almond and chocolate ones!  I really feel like I made a big baking accomplishment! 

If you recall from my post on croissants, when you get to step 5, you have finished the croissant dough and it is shaped like a book.  You cut that book in half and now you have two mini-books.  With the first mini-book, I made regular croissants.  With the second mini-book, I made almond and chocolate croissants! 

To start, I made the almond filling.  It is made of room temperature butter, ground almonds, confectioners sugar, corn starch and almond extract.  This is mixed up in a food processor and then refrigerated so it can firm up.  It is supposed to refrigerate for an hour or two, but I was anxious to get these done so I put my mixture in the freezer while I rolled out the dough and made the chocolate croissants. 

I rolled the dough out the same way, but this time cut it into some triangles (with a 4 inch base this time) for the almond croissants, and some rectangles for the chocolate croissants.  I used the diagonal scraps from the triangle and initially stuck them together to make more triangles, and then stuck the triangles together make a rectangle!  Thank you, junior high geometry class!  The squished together triangles are in the upper left corner of this photo.

Then it was time to roll the chocolate croissants.  The actual recipe suggests that you use chocolate batons but I didn't have those nor did I actually look for them in the store.  However, if I was ever to make chocolate croissants again, I would definitely find the batons.  It is very tricky to roll chocolate chips in pastry dough without having them fall out all over the place!  Plus, the recipe calls for an ounce of chocolate, which is quite a lot!  Chocolate croissants get rolled into a tube, not a typical croissant shape.  I have no idea why that is, do you?

After the rectangles were all filled with chocolate, it was time to make the almond croissants.  Now, I have to admit that almond croissants are my favorite.  If I am going to purchase a croissant, my first choice will always be almond.  I am a huge fan.  For the almond croissants, you use one tablespoon of almond filling per croissant, and I found that the filling recipe made enough for approximately 10 croissants.  Not enough for me, but plenty for the way I made this recipe.  Almond croissants are rolled up just like a regular croissant, in the typical shape. 

The croissants are placed on a parchment covered baking sheet, brushed with egg wash, and allowed to rise for 3 1/2 to 4 hours.  They went in the turned-off oven with a pan of steaming water underneath, just as the regular croissants did.  However with this batch, some of the butter seemed to leak out while rising...  I am not sure what the difference was or why this batch had some butter leakage and the first batch did not.  The only thing I can think is that it was more humid when I made these so maybe the humidity plus the steaming water was too much?  Regardless, I carefully wiped up the bits of leaked butter (the almond ones leaked more than the chocolate ones) and then brushed them again with egg wash.  I sprinkled more crushed almonds and some slivered almonds on the almond croissants, and sprinkled some vanilla sugar on the chocolate ones.  Then I baked them as I did the first batch. 

And here they are!  The chocolate croissant on the bottom right is the one made of the random scraps of dough... not so pretty but according to the clever girl, it was delicious!  I have to admit that I prefer the almond ones to the chocolate ones...  I almost feel like the chocolate ones are just a bit much for me, which I know is totally crazy.  Too much chocolate?  That is just ridiculous!

Yum.  What a divine treat!  It was definitely some work, but such an accomplishment!